UPDATES IN MICHIGAN FAMILY LAW

How will the court deal with separate property claims?

      Courts are often called upon to decide whether assets are marital property subject to division in a divorce or whether assets are separate property. In a recent Michigan Court of Appeals case, Maher v Maher, Wife [“W”] claimed that a Smith Barney investment account titled to both parties was marital property. The account had initially been funded with settlement proceeds from Husband’s [“H”] prior employment discrimination case—filed before the parties’ marriage, but settled during the marriage. W also claimed that the appreciation of that account was marital. The trial court found that the initial investment continued to remain H’s separate property, but the appreciation in the account during the parties’ marriage was distributable as marital property. Both parties appealed. The final result in the COA was that H got to keep not only the initial monies, but also all of the appreciation.

Dividing up the thousands of family photos

Nothing can be more heart-wrenching that the thought that you have to divide the family photos with your former spouse. Do you have to sit and choose them . . . this one for you, this one for me?

And there's more! How many of us really look at old family photos in an album? I suspect not many. Also, old print photos degrade, the photos become brittle, the colors faded. New digital sharing produces photos you can view like a slide show on your TV screen.

A new day coming? Lesbian has standing to seek co-parenting in Wayne County

Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen McCarthy ruled last Friday--a ruling that could have broad and precedent-setting legal consequences--that a Downriver woman has standing in her suit to get joint custody of three children she says she raised with the biological mother. The biological mother's attorney says he will ask for a stay and will appeal. If the decision stands up on appeal, it would be the first time gays, lesbians and unmarried heterosexuals in Michigan would have legal standing to obtain joint custody.

Dana Nessel, Renee Harmon's lawyer, said Friday that "This is a historic moment . . . Judge McCarthy's ruling really ushers us into the 21st Century."

Safety precautions to help parents prevent a fatal error | infant left in car

Gene Weingarten's Washington Post 2010 Pulitzer prize-winning article "Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?" has stimulated some comment on the Internet. Some constructive comment was available on the Post online about how to prevent these fatal or potentially fatal mistakes.

One possibility is an electronically installed weight-triggering device. If there is too much weight on a seat, an alarm is set off. Well, that would have to be really well designed for this particular situation. My front passenger seat has a weight-triggered device. If I set my heavy briefcase on it, a red light will show up on my dashboard saying that the airbag for the passenger seat has been de-activated. In other words, my brief case weighs as much as a small child, so the airgbag is deactivated to avoid death or injury to a child in the event of a crash. But I only know that if I am not distracted and I do see the red light on the console.

Hospital visitation rights extended to gay & lesbian couples

The Washington Post reports that President Obama mandated Thursday (April 15th) that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients' choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.

Fatal Distraction | Infant left alone in hot car

We've all read these stories: Infant left alone in car for hours. Infant dies of hyperthermia. I remember reading one news article about a mother who left 2 children alone in a car on a hot day while she went to get her hair and nails done. Both died. Horrifying. One thinks: Of course! These parents should be convicted . . . of something. Or should they?

The Washington Post yesterday won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for a story about several parents who made a horrible mistake. They drove to work. They parked their cars. They did not remember that they had not dropped their infant off at the day-care. The child died in the car as the temperature rose. What kind of parents do this?

Digital world creates opportunity to air dirty laundry in public

Where is it going to end? We've looked at the Facebook and MySpace paux pas. We've considered other digital issues. Now it's the eBlast. Using special online resources, it is possible to create an email that can be sent to about 150 people per eBlast. (Need more, use another eBlast . . . and another).

Rethinking children as property

Every now and then I am reminded that our legal system tends to treat children as property. Parents have constitutional rights to be protected and children often have no rights at all in decisions made by judges who are virtual strangers to the family. Nowhere is that so apparent as when a non-marital child is born to a married woman. Protecting the rights of the child to have a relationship with the biological father is difficult indeed--just as difficult as protecting the rights of the biological father to have a relationship with his child.

IVF, Designer babies & Single mothers by choice

Recently, the subject of designer babies came up on a Listserv in which I participate. The topic under discussion was Lesbian couples who have children born using in vitro fertilization (IVF) or sperm donors and the tragedies playing out around the country when these mothers split and the biological mother keeps the non-bio Mom from having contact with the child they've planned and raised together. I opined that there's got to be a way that we can combine genetic material, creating a "designer baby," so that, upon "divorce" both mothers will have an equal claim to custody and parenting time.

Grandparenting time controversy in the Sean Goldman case

On April 5th, the Associated Press reported that Sean Goldman's Brazilian grandmother has filed a court action seeking to have visitation with Sean. Apparently she and her husband have been
in New Jersey since last month and arrived with hopes of visiting 9-year-old Sean Goldman. Sean and his father arrived home in the United States on December 24, 2009.

Apparently Silvana Bianchi has a short memory. Is it possible that she has forgotten that David Goldman had to wait four years to see Sean after Goldman's former wife (Bianchi's daughter, now deceased) abducted the child to Brazil?

Pre-Nups | Tiger Woods case sparks interest

A recent article sparked by Tiger Woods' marital problems discusses the importance of prenuptial agreements today.

"The prenup seems so utterly unromantic — or just plain wrong — but it's also become so right for so many these days: those keenly aware that a marriage may end up in a legal separation, divorce or death. Most prenups tackle financial issues such as real estate, division of bank accounts and potential spousal support in the case of divorce or separation."

Divorce in Michigan | Economy affects lawyers & litigants

An article by Catherine Jun published in the The Detroit News in March 2010 should be of interest to all --not just divorcing couples who are trying to save money by handling their divorces on their own, but also by attorneys who are seeing a decrease in client base. The article confirms what I see time and again as I am sitting in the peanut gallery waiting for my case to be called for final hearing. So often, parties representing themselves are refused entry of a judgment because their paperwork is defective. The article should be of interest to Detroit area lawyers because of the local focus.

Free online calculator | Multi-function

Here's a link to an online calculator -- free, and nothing to download. There are many useful functions. Thanks to Elizabeth Sadowski for bringing this to my attention.

• Investment Calculators for calculating the rate of return, the amount of interest, present value
• Loan Calculators for calculating the amount of the payments and/or balloon payment, amount of down payment, interest rates, etc.
• Personal Finance Calculators for calculating the cost of an afforable house or car, length of time to pay off a loan
• Retirement Calculators for calculating how much do you have to save to reach your goal
• Schedules - What were your principal and interest payments this year?

Moffsoft Free calculators

ID | Locate cell phone

I have to tell you. This is too scary. Cell Phone Snoop.

Cell phone locator?

Buy the name / ID?

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